Eight Sins
by Sanura Bey
Summary: When a kingdom is taken over by tyrants, the deposed princess begins a quest to find a disbanded group of evil knights to help take back her realm. After all, with the Eight Deadly Sins on your side how can you lose? No pairing currently. Maybe eventual Ban/OC
1. The Eight Deadly Sins

I tended the bar while my brother served drinks to the customers with a large smile on his face.

"Here you go!" I told a customer happily handing him his drink with a smile as my long black hair swished around nearly at my ankles and under my bust. Very long layers. I wore a black tank with thick straps that fell a little ways under my bust and jean short shorts with a thick black belt around my waist. The only jewelry I wore was a black choker with a cross hanging off of it. I also had black fingerless gloves and black combat boots that almost reached my knees. My only weapon was a long sword kept at the small of my back. It seemed like it would be easy to draw it, but it was easier than it looked. My older brother and I were the owners of a thriving bar that was popular for booze not so much food. I continued serving drinks at the bar occasionally moving to the floor and refilling a drink before going back to the bar.

"You got room for any more people?" a man called from the door.

"How many people, sir?" my brother asked him.

"Three!" he told him.

"Welcome to our establishment, the Boar Hat!" my brother told them.

"Heeeeey! Can we get some snacks over here?!" someone called out. "Anything's fine!"

"Yessir!" my brother answered them before going to the back and cooking something.

"Puhaaaahh, Bernaia Ale is the best!" another called.

"By the way, since when was there a bar on the top of the hill here?" I heard a man ask and I smiled as I served drinks.

"You're right… I feel like there wasn't anything here when I passed through three days ago…" another added.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting!" my brother told the three customers who wanted the food. "The Boar Hat Meat Pie Special!"

"Ohh, it looks delicious!" the three men said before they took a bite. "This is disgustiiiingg!" they said spitting everything out.

"As I expected." My brother said guarding himself with the tray he was serving them with.

"Hey, bastard, just what the hell are you serving?!" they asked angrily.

"You said anything was fine." I reminded them coming up to stand behind my brother.

"You trying to pick a fight?!" one of them asked him.

"Oh dear…" I said. "What a troublesome customer."

"What'd you say?" one of the men yelled at me. "You wanna go at it!?"

"Hey…! These two have got swords." One of them said finally noticing the sword handles on my brother's back and at the small of mine.

"Clean it up…" my brother said before snapping. From behind us someone moved towards us slowly and they looked behind us nervously before seeing Hork the pig.

"Geez, what a paaain." Hork said. "What do you want from me?" he asked us.

"A… a pig?" they asked confused.

"Pig? Don't insult me, I'm a pig that gets people to come here." he told them.

"Hork, clean up the floor." My brother ordered.

"Tch… what a pain…" Hork complained. "Hahh… actually, how about feeding me some more decent food scraps?"

"If it's a pig whole roast, I seriously feel like I could pull it off." My brother told them.

"It is just roasting it, couldn't be too hard." I added.

"Deliiiiicious!" Hork said. "These food scraps are the best!"

"L… looks like it doesn't matter anymore…" one of the three men said.

"So you've been had, too!" another customer said as I went back to the bar.

"But if it's alcohol you want, we've got a good collection since we travel through a bunch of different regions!" my brother told them.

"The… then some good alcohol." Our disruptive customers told him.

"Comin' right up!" I told them before serving them.

"Oohh…? It's true… the alcohol is great!" he exclaimed.

"Then I'll have another round over here, too!" another called out and I got the drinks ready for my brother to take to them.

"So, have you heard?" someone asked after Hork joined me behind the bar. "The rumors about the 'wandering rust knight'!"

"I'm hungry…" Hork told me.

"You just ate." I reminded him.

"He wears rusted armor… that ghost knight that's appearing and disappearing lately, right?" another customer asked him.

"It's pretty creepy, huh…" one said as I poured a drink.

"And there's more. Apparently, he wanders around muttering something, as if he'd delirious…"

"I think it was the eight… what was it again?"

"Look, that wanted board over there!"

"Uh… umm, that's right! The Eight Deadly Sins!"

"The criminals who plotted the overthrowing of the kingdom ten years ago… I think."

"These guys still haven't been caught, right?"

"Yeah… not a single one."

"There are some rumors saying that all of them have died already, though."

"They're definitely dead! There's no way the Holy Knights would just let them go."

"But these posters are renewed every year. Doesn't that mean that they Holy Knights are still doing everything they can to find them?"

"Maybe that 'rust knight' is the ghost of the 'Eight Deadly Sins'…"

"What's this rusty smell?" Hork asked.

"How should I know I asked him.

"And he might be searching for his comrades…"

"Hey, what does the kid employee and the sexy owner think?"

"I'm not a kid! I'm Meliodas and this is my younger sister Ashlee!" my brother said. "And I'm not an employee, we're both the owners… all right!?"

"O…owner?" a guy asked. "A kid like that?"

"Huh…? Melio… das and Ash… lee… sounds like something I've heard before…" suddenly the door opened and Meliodas welcomed the new customer. I looked up to see it was it was a knight in large rusted armor. Everyone froze staring at the knight in fear.

"The Ei… ght… Deadly… Sins…" the knight said.

"IT IS HEEEEEEERE!" all the customers ran for the door behind the knight as it made its way to the bar. "IT'S THE EIGHT DEADLY SINS!"

"SAAAVE USS! WE… WE'RE GOING TO DIIIIE!" Meliodas stepped in front of me and the bar.

"Who're you?" he asked the knight. Suddenly the knight fell back making the helmet fall off to reveal a woman. Hork and I made our way out from behind the bar to take a good look at her.

"It's a woman." Hork said.

"Unnya!" Meliodas said.

"Whaaaat!?" Hork shouted before we stripped her of her armor and placed her on Meliodas' bed.

"This sleeping face." Meliodas listed off. "This body line. This smell. This elasticity." He squeezed her right breast and I sighed. "It's definitely a woman!"

"You… you don't feel guilty in the slightest!" Hork said as he continued his squeezing.

"No. He really doesn't." I sighed before the girl sat up suddenly.

"Ye… yes….?" She asked blushing brightly.

"And no abnormalities in you heartbeat, either!" Meliodas said covering himself.

"Th… thank you very much?" she questioned.

"You bastaaard acting so aloof!" Hork said.

"That wasn't even the right side of her chest stupid!" I yelled smacking the back of his head.

"Where… is this…?" she asked looking around. "Um… why am I…?"

"You came into the bar in some crazy daze and suddenly passed out." I told her.

"Bar?" she asked confused.

"The Boar Hat! It's our bar!" Meliodas told her.

"Are you … the owners…?" she asked us.

"Is that strange?" Meliodas asked.

"N… no!" she said quickly. "Those swords on your backs… I… just thought you were swordsmen of something." He quickly drew the sword making her flinch back. He held the blade up to show it was broken. "The blade… is broken…?"

"Heheeh, did I scare you?" he asked her. "Even if it's just the hilt, it looks pretty authentic if I just show it off, right? This is was you'd call an incentive for people not to run off without paying!"

"What about yours?" she asked me.

"Mine's the real deal, but I also use it mostly for show." I told her. "A lot of different kinds of customers come to a bar, after all… it's hard being one of the owners."

"I feel sorrier for the customers that get their cash stolen from you after being fed your food." Hork told us.

"They have to pay for the food they force him to cook when asking for it." I told him.

"Why don't you just cook?" he asked me.

"Don't feel like it." I told him before our gest suddenly hugged Hork.

"Wooooooww! It's a talking piggy!" she told us. "I begged my father for one before!"

"The name's Hork!" he told the woman.

"What's your pig called?" Meliodas asked her. Her mood went from happy to sad quickly.

"Are you hungry?" I asked her with a kind smile.

"If you want, I'll let you have some." Meliodas told her.

"You'll feed me pork?" she asked.

"I'm not pork! I'm Hork!" Hork reminded the woman.

"Unfortunately, just food from the bar!" Meliodas told her.

"You piece of shit… don't say is so misleadingly!" Hork ordered. We all went downstairs and I poured myself a drink as Meliodas cooked for the woman.

"In addition to looking after me, you're even giving me food…" she said as Meliodas put a plate in front of her. "Just… what can I do to repay you…"

"It's all right, just eat!" Meliodas told her.

"All right… thanks for the food!" she said before taking a bite.

"How is it?" Meliodas asked her grinning. "It tastes horrible, right?"

"Yes." She answered.

"I knew it!" he said before she started crying.

"To the point of tears!" Hork said.

"That's a new reaction." I stated watching her face.

"But… it's really… good…" she said smiling.

"Hey… what were you doing in armor like that?" Meliodas asked her.

"I'm searching for them." She told us. "The Eight Deadly Sins." Suddenly someone started banging on our front door.

"Open up!" a man ordered. "There was a notice from the village people! We are the knights garrisoned at the base of the mountain who serve the Holy Knight himself! We have come to capture the Rust Knight who appears to be one of the Eight Deadly Sins!"

"Some noisy guys have appeared." Meliodas said.

"Holy Knight…" Meliodas and I shared a look at the woman's reaction and silently agreed on what needed to be done.

"Come out quietly!" the man ordered once again as we got our plan ready. "It must be an old man! Seems he's scared of us!"

"Cocky bastard, isn't he?" I asked no one in particular.

"All right! Then I'll give you thirty seconds!" he told us right before Meliodas opened the door.

"Don't need it."

"That was fast." The man said as we stepped out. "And who the hell are the two of you!?"

"We're the owners." I told him.

"Where's the Rust Knight!? Bring him out!" he ordered.

"Come on out." Meliodas called into the bar.

"Hah! Looks like you're pretty quick to understand…" he said as Hork came out in some of the rusty armor.

"Fuh… someone call for me?" he asked me. "I'm Hork the Rust Knight!"

"Th-this pig is one of the Eight Deadly Sins!?" another knight asked.

"Like hell it is!" the leader answered.

"Whaaat!? I'm the leader of the knights of disposing of scraps of food! Don't you know that?" Hork asked him.

"There is no such group of knights!" the leader shouted at him.

"If you'd like this pig, you can boil him, grill him, anything…" Meliodas told them.

"Don't do either of those!" Hork demanded before Meliodas was suddenly lifted off his feet by the knight.

"You braaat…!" he yelled in his face. "You've got some guts, mocking a knight!" the knight growled at him as Meliodas stared down at him calmly.

"Mr. Alioni, a woman just ran out the back door!" another of the knights called out.

"Wha… what!?" Alioni called out. "That woman is probably the Rust Knight! Follow her!"

"Yes!" and with that they all ran after the woman. I took the armor off Hork and laid it down on the porch.

"What shall we do, big brother?" I asked him standing.

"Hork. If you go after them, we'll double your dinner." He told him. He instantly went after the knights who'd chased the woman. We made our way through the trees to one of the last ones and waited for our surprise guest to rung past. Once she was below us Meliodas picked her up and held her in his arms as Hork knocked Alioni over the cliff.

"Um, you've saved me… twice… thank you… very much." The woman said blushing at him squeezing her breast once again.

"Will you stop it!?" I yelled at him.

"So, how's the rest of the story go?" Meliodas asked her ignoring me. We jumped down from the tree and he placed her on her feet once more. I felt a presence coming towards us, but kept my back to it for now.

"The reason I am searching for the Eight Deadly Sins is to stop the Holy Knights." She told us. "You've both helped me so many times… I will never… I will never forget this debt… but please somehow… forget about me." She turned away from us to continue her journey to find the sins.

"You're going to stop the Holy Knight!?" Hork asked her shocked. "The Holy Knights are knights among knights who protect Britannia. They're heroes, aren't they?"

"And they are terrifying existences." The woman told us. "Just one of them has enough power to match an entire country's army. What is they decided to wage war against Britannia?" she asked shocking us with her question. "A few days ago… due to a coup d'état orchestrated by the Holy Knights, the King was captured. The kingdom has essentially fallen into the hands of the Holy Knights. In order to start a war, they are forcibly recruiting people from the towns and villages surrounding the kingdom. The men are to be trained as soldiers, the women and children to bring food for storage, and the elderly are to construct castle walls. Without mercy those who oppose them are… soon enough the effect of the their actions will befall this region too."

"Seriously!?" Hork asked shocked.

"That sounds pretty bad." Meliodas added.

"If there… were one thing that could stop the Holy Knights, it would be the Eight Deadly Sins!" she told us.

"Are you really looking for the Eight Deadly Sins even knowing what kind of people they are?" I asked her.

"When I was five or six years old… my father often told me the stories. Apparently the Eight Deadly Sins was the strongest and cruelest order of knights in the kingdom, formed by eight brutal criminals who carved symbols of eight beasts into the bodies. Ten years ago, they were accused of plotting to overthrow the kingdom, and disintegrated after all the Holy Knights in the kingdom launched a general offensive against them." She told us.

"And there were rumors of them all dying, if I recall." Meliodas told her.

"There's no way that such amazing people would die so easily!" she yelled at him.

"But they're villains, aren't they?" he asked her.

"The Holy Knights are the ones who are actually making people suffer!" she countered. We all stared at each other before the earth below our feet started shaking.

"Well this isn't good." I stated before we fell. I jumped down ahead of the others and picked up Alioni before jumping back up to the cliff. I met up with Meliodas before dropping my load on the ground.

"What're you all doing alive!? Don't change my confirmed death toll!" a man shouted behind us.

"Don't confirm it without evidence." I called to him.

"Hey… you awake?" Meliodas asked the woman in his arms.

"Yes… I am." She confirmed.

"Well, no matter… which one of you is the one presumed to be one of the Eight Deadly Sins? None of you resemble any of the wanted posters, it seems." The man said looking us over.

"All right! When I give the signal, run to the forest! Okay?" Meliodas told her quietly.

"Huh?" she asked confused before his words sunk in. "Yes!"

"Well, it seems I'm in luck!" the man said moving towards us. "The symbol on that earring is that of the royal family. Which means you are… Confirmed! Princess Elizabeth!"

"Princess Elizabeth?" Meliodas asked as we all looked at her.

"Princess Elizabeth!?" Hork asked. "As in, the princess of the kingdom!?"

"There's a search order out for you throughout the kingdom. You won't run, will you? The orders are to capture you alive… but if can't be helped if you die in an accident, can it?" he asked her.

"We're going!" Meliodas called out and we all took off.

"There's no way I can allow myself to be captured… there's no way I can give up!" she called out as we ran. Suddenly an attack was slicing its way behind us and we all dropped to the ground. Well, Meliodas tackled Elizabeth to the ground for her own safety. The trees above our heads were destroyed and trees and their branches fell all around us.

"Yo." Meliodas said smiling at Elizabeth. "Hork looks like… you're fine"

"You call this skewered-pig state fine?" Hork asked him. I looked at the pig and sure enough he had a branch sticking out of his rump. He ran away from us crying for his mom. Suddenly Elizabeth stood up and we looked at her confused.

"Elizabeth!" Meliodas said in his surprise. "Hey, where are you going?"

"I won't be able to get away." She said.

"You just said there's no way you can give up… didn't you?" I asked her.

"If I surrender to him quietly, he should not take you lives for no reason." She told us. He attacked her again and Meliodas quickly got her out of the way of the attack and I rolled out of the path. The attack destroyed one of my gloves and Meliodas' shirt sleeve. "Please! At the very least, you should make it out alive!"

"It looks like he's going to kill us either way." Meliodas told her as I made my way to them.

"Why?" she asked wiping her eyes of tears that just appeared. "I… was happy. All… alone… I went on a journey to find the Eight Deadly Sins… I've never… been on a journey before… I was so… worried… and in order to hide my identity, I wore armor I wasn't used to, and walked until I was exhausted… but… I wasn't able… to rely on… anyone… but… you were so kind… to me… someone you didn't… even know… that's… why I… don't want to wrap you up in this an further… you, whose names I don't even know!" he just looked down at her before smiling.

"Meliodas and Ashlee." He told her. "That's our names."

"Meliodas… Ashlee… what… that can't be." She told us. "No way… that's… but… you don't look…" I walked up to them and placed my bare hand on my waist. "Those symbols… a beast… no… the dragon and the wolf!" the man was right behind them now and attacked but his attacked was redirected back at him.

"Wh… what is this?" he asked. "What… is this!?" he asked once more. "A sword with a broken blade!? Do you plan on fighting me with that trash!?"

"Trash is just fine." Meliodas told him.

"Meliodas and Ashlee… are you really that…?" Elizabeth asked us.

"Meliodas…? Ashlee…? W… wait, I remember seeing your faces before…" the man said. "No… if that's the case, shy do you not look any different from before…!?"

"Have you figured out… who we are?" Meliodas asked him.

"It… it can't be!" he said preparing to attack once more. "Truly, you are… you aaaaaaaaareee!" he shouted as he attacked. Meliodas took one swing at him with his broken blade.

"Eight Deadly Sins – The Dragon Sin Meliodas!"

"Eight Deadly Sins – The Wolf Sin Ashlee!"

"Confirmed… this… power… beyond common… ability. That… legendary…!" the knight was blasted away from us into the air.

"Ohh! He sure went up high!" Meliodas said sheathing his sword.

"If you weren't used a broken blade, he'd been dead." I stated before we turned to a now standing Elizabeth.

"Well, looks like with this, you've found the first two… Elizabeth." Meliodas told her.

"About the remaining six, we've got business with them too, so we've started searching for them recently. We've been running a bar to gather information." I told her.

"If we had a serving girl, then we'd be able to get more customers and more information." Meliodas told her. "You'll come with us… right?"

"Yes!" she said with happy tears in her eyes. Suddenly a large green pig with the Boar Hat on her back dropped from the sky with a rope ladder falling right in front of us. I grabbed on and climbed up a bit so Meliodas could climb it as well with Elizabeth under his arm.

"Nice timing Hork's Mom!" I said.

"Let's get outta here!" Hork said as we were pulled up.

Was this meeting coincidence or inevitable? Is it despair or hope that awaits us? Our adventure to find the Eight Deadly Sins had just begun.


	2. The Holy Knight's Sword

We had moved inside the Boar Hat when Elizabeth started her introduction.

"Ah… again, it's nice to meet you. I'm Elizabeth Leoneth, the third princess of the kingdom." She told us.

"Welcome to the Boar Hat! We'll be counting on you from now on, waitress!" Meliodas told her.

"Y… Yes! I'll do my best!" she told him.

"Well, first off, let's get you changed into something a little less ripped." I told her.

"I don't know." Meliodas told me as we made our way upstairs. "I think it's a turn on the way it is now."

"Pervert." Hork stated.

"The customers would like it better that way too." He defended.

"Only the men." I reminded him.

"We have more men than women come in." he stated as we walked into his room.

"We also have families come in." I told him as he started digging through one of the drawers.

"Oh… here it is!" he said ignoring me again. He handed her the clothes so she and we left so she could get changed.

"U… umm." We stopped what we were doing and turned to her. I sighed and looked to Meliodas with a look on my face. "Th… these clothes are…?"

"It's our uniform!" he told her giving her a thumbs up.

"Sorry that his tastes are so obvious." Hork said. "Forgive us." He started walking around her, looking every inch of her over.

"On the bright side,

"What are you doing?" I asked him, before he suddenly lifted the back of her skirt and looked at her panties. "Hey!"

"Don't worry, it's a size check." He told us.

"Says the perv who can tell a woman's size just by looking at her!" I shouted at him.

"YOU IDIOOOT!" Hork said pulling on Meliodas' clothes with his hooves and his hair with his teeth. "YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE OUR PRECIOUS EYE CANDY RUN AWAY!"

"Should I be offended or okay that you're basically saying we only have one eye candy?" I asked, but no one paid much attention.

"Um… Lord Meliodas, Lady Ashlee." The two of us turned to Elizabeth. "There's one thing I'd like to ask the two of you about."

"Hm? Ask us anything!" he told her.

"You think your hair will stick like that?" I asked him jokingly and he thought about it.

"Nah."

"Are the Eight… Are the two of you really as much of a villain as everyone says you are?" she asked us and I sat at a table placing my hand over my covered mark. "If so, wh… what kind of crime did you commit? I think that everyone if just misunderstanding something! Because you… saved someone like me, whom you didn't even know!"

"You are a fan of the personal questions, aren't you?" I asked her.

"I'm so sorry! If you don't…" she started saying but I cut her off.

"Don't worry about it. The crime we committed to get our marks, huh? That's what you're curious about?" I asked her and she nodded shyly.

"What kinda crime, huh?" Meliodas said thinking. "Ten years ago… I roamed through Britannia, stealing all the panties in sight."

"Y… you're lying right?!" she asked him.

"It's a lie." He told her. "Actually, I walked around groping the breasts of a thousand women."

"Brea… you're kidding right?!" she asked.

"Kidding." He stated.

"L… Lord Meliodas, please stop making fun of me!" she told him before her face changed. "O… or is it that you really committed a crime that you cannot speak about?" he thought about it for a moment as memories flashed before my eyes.

"Something like that." He told her.

"Huh?" she asked. Suddenly she lurched forward with Meliodas rushing to catch her. Of course his face 'somehow' found its way into her breasts. "We've stopped?" she asked once she was standing straight once more.

"Looks like we're here." Meliodas said.

"We're here? Where is here?" she asked.

"The next area we can get information. The village of Bernia!" He told her before we made our way to the ground. Hork's mom dug until she was completely buried under the ground and all anyone could see was the bar which amazed Elizabeth.

"We stock the bar with alcohol from a lot of different regions." I told her.

"Is that so?" she asked curiously.

"Yea. We come here once every few years and stock up as much as we can. Bernia's ale is one of a kind." I said. "It's made with famous river water, which is hailed as the best in Britannia, and grout growing abundantly along that river. The ale has fans all over the country."

"Grout?" she asked confused.

"Grout is an herb used in making ales." I explained and she nodded her understanding.

"Wait," Hork said looking into said famous river from the bridge we stood on. "That famous river's all dried up. What's going on?"

"The herbs along the river are also wilted." Elizabeth noted. We were staring down at the river when Elizabeth suddenly had a violent shiver tear through her.

"What's wrong, Elizabeth?" Meliodas asked her.

"Nothing, I just got the chills for a second." She told us.

"You all right?" I asked.

"It's just that my heart's pounding a little." She told me smiling slightly and putting her hand over her heart.

"Let me see." Meliodas told her placing his hand on her breast.

"Cut it out already!" Hork shouted at him.

* * *

When we got into town, all the townspeople were gathered in the square.

"Whoa, a festival?" Meliodas asked smiling.

"There're a lot of people in the town square!" Elizabeth said sounding excited..

"This is awesome advertising for the bar!" Hork told her.

"Yeah!" Elizabeth agreed.

"Hey guys!" Meliodas greeted some men at the edge of the crowd.

"Oh… the owners of the traveling bar that comes every year!" one of the men said as he a few of them turned to us.

"What's today's festival for?" I asked them and they grew angry at me.

"This isn't a joke! Does this look like a festival for you?!" another man asked me.

"Is it the gathering of hot and sweaty geezers festival?" Meliodas asked ignoring their earlier comments.

"We just told you it isn't a festival!" the man shouted at him.

"What is going on then?" I asked them.

"We're trying to pull out the word that the Holy Knight stuck into the ground!" they told us.

"The Holy Knight stuck the sword…? Why did he do something like that?" Meliodas asked.

"Yesterday, the wrath of the Holy Knight fell upon us." The Village head told us. "The sword inbued with his magic sealed the underground water source."

"If this goes on, not only the water, but even the grout will be finished."

"If that happens, Bernia's Ale will be… shit!"

"The Holy Knight… is it the one Lord Meliodas defeated yesterday?" Elizabeth asked me.

"No," I told her. "That guy wasn't a Holy Knight. A real Holy Knight is nothing like that."

"It's hard to say, but this village is finished." The village head told us. "To pull out a Holy Knight's sword, we need the power of the Holy Knights." Behind the large group two knights laughed at the men's attempts to pull the sword out.

"Come on, try harder!" one mocked.

"You damn knights!" one of the men commented. Suddenly, a young boy ran past us and stopped before the large group.

"Hey, now! What's up with the whiny tone?" he asked the men.

"Mead…"

"What's the big deal about the Holy Knight's sword!" the boy asked them. "If you leave it to my pal from the Eight, it'll be easy!" that drew not only our attention but the two knights as well.

"Who do you think is responsible for all of this!?" one of the men asked him.

"You damn brat!"

"Of all the things to say, you had to mention that villainous name!"

"Don't make the Holy Knight even angrier!"

"It's all your fault, Mead!" the boy looked shocked by their words.

"What do you have against us!?"

"Wha… what?" Mead asked. "I never meant it like that."

"We're through with your lies and jokes!"

"Stupid Mead!" one of the children shouted as she threw a rock that hit Meliodas in the face.

"I h-hate you all!" Mead shouted back at them as they started throwing rocks.

"The village hates you too, Mead!"

"Hey, knock it off!"

"Go away!"

"Shut up! Idiots! Idiots! Idiooots!" Mead shouted back as Meliodas pushed him back towards the bar.

"Everyone stop!" the village head ordered getting between them and his village.

"Look like we dropped in at a bad time." Hork said.

"Oh, my. Deep down he's a good boy, but lately he's been pulling a lot of pranks around the village." He told us.

"Tell us about him." I told him as a pair of faces flashed before my eyes. Once he told us Mead's tale we made our way back to the bar.

"Oh, it's you three." Meliodas said when we walked in.

"We heard from the village head, Mead-chan." Elizabeth told him. "You're a big prankster, aren't you? When I was little, my father scolded me a lot for pulling pranks."

"Good for you! Congrats!" Mead told her, but she wasn't done.

"I wanted his attention, because he wasn't my real father." That drew his attention. "One time, I climbed the big tree in the garden to surprise him. Then, he turned pale and started climbing up to me, even though he'd never climbed a tree in his life. As expected, he couldn't climb up, fell and, and got hurt. I can't forget what happened, even now. If my father died back then…" Mead slammed his hands on the table.

"My mom and dad were travelers. A few years ago, they bell fell victim to an epidemic when they stopped by Bernia. I was alone, but the villagers took me in and raised me in place of my parents. I was really happy. But even then, I didn't belong to a family, and I was jealous of everyone who had families. I told lies. I pulled pranks." He told us before he started crying.

"When you put the worm in the Holy Knight's drink, was it also because of that?" Elizabeth asked him.

"Hell no!" he shouted. "That bastard! That Holy Knight made fools out of us! The adults, and even the kids, they put in so much effort into making the best ale, but not only did they take it all as taxes he insulted us! The Holy Knights are all shams!"

"That's terrible." Hork said quietly.

"So when you said your friend was one of the Eight…" Meliodas started asking, already guessing the answer.

"It was a lie."

"Then why say you have a friend in the Eight?" I asked him.

"Aren't the Eight being chased by the Holy Knights?" Mead asked. "f they're enemies of those evil Holy Knights, then that makes the Eight the good guys, right?" Elizabeth and Hork shared a look before looking at us.

"What?" we asked them, and Elizabeth just smiled. Suddenly we heard raised voices from below.

"It's from the village!" Mead shouted as he looked out from the window. He rushed from the bar back to his village. I stood from my seat and followed him at a slower pace.

"What do you plan on doing?" Meliodas asked me. I didn't answer as we all made our way to the village. When we arrived the two knights were sitting on a caped off well drinking booze laughing at the others.

"Wooo, go, go!"

"Even with everyone from the village together, it's no use!" as the villages struggled, shouted, and begged for the sword to come out the knights continued to laugh. "Look at those desperate fools!"

"Watching them goes together perfectly with drinking!"

"Toast to the foooools?" during their toasting Meliodas had snatched up their drink as we'd passed them.

"Guys who don't understand the taste of alcohol don't deserve to drink this alcohol." Meliodas told them as he handed one of the pints to me. We drank as the rope snapped causing the villagers to fall back around us. We moved through them carefully before placing the pints on the ground. "That was good."

"Sorry, we don't have any money on us, so how about this?" I asked pulling the sword from the ground. "I take care of your problem and we call it even."

"No way…"

"The sword only a Holy Knight could pull out…"

"A woman just like that…" from underground, a noise could be heard rushing towards something.

"What's that noise?" Suddenly, water rose out of the capped off well like a geyser forcing the knights and the cap into the air.

"It's water!"

"the underground spring is back!"

"Wonder how much this would sell for." Meliodas said looking at the sword in my hand.

"Not enough." I told him.

"Hey," I looked down to see Mead staring up at me. "Could you possibly be the real…"

"Yep!" Meliodas said. "Not just 'possibly.' We're the real, proud owners of a bar!"

"That's not it!" Mead started telling him as Meliodas turned him to face the village.

"Enough about that." Meliodas told him. "Don't you have something to do?"

"Mead…"

"Um, we're sorry."

"Can you forgive us?"

"Forgive or not for someone like me…" Mead said turning to the ground. Meliodas gave him a little push towards the villagers.

"Here go!" Mead started crying and running to the people who'd cared for him his entire life.

"No matter what lies you tell the world, you can't lie to your own heart." I said.

"Lady Ashlee…"

"Boar Hat Owners Ashlee and Meliodas! You're Bernia's savior!" the villagers cried out surrounding us.

"We have to toast this!"

"Yeeeah!"


End file.
